Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in a scene from the film "Pretty Woman."Getty Images

Before it became a classic, the film “Pretty Woman” not only had a hard time getting made, but it was almost an entirely different — and very dark — movie.

“I can’t tell you how much time was spent debating,” former Disney studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg said at a Hearst Tower Q&A on Thursday.

“As a script, ‘Pretty Woman’ was an R-rated movie about a hooker on Hollywood Boulevard. By the way, in the original version — it’s pretty dark — I think she died of an overdose. So convincing [people] that we should make that at the Walt Disney Co., and that it’s a fairy tale and a princess movie, a lot of people had a hard time seeing it. But, as they say, the rest is history.”

The movie mogul, who’s now launching new digital media and technology investment firm WndrCo, also gave Sunday’s Oscars high marks, calling the awards “one of the best produced,” and chalking up the epic ending to “live TV.”

He added, “That’s the excitement and challenge of going on the high wire . . . I would say as troubling as it must have been in the moment . . . I don’t think there’s been an [Oscars] as talked about the morning after for a decade.”